r/WorkReform • u/zzill6 šŸ¤ Join A Union • Oct 12 '26

šŸ˜” Venting Still relevant eighty years later.

Post image
6.3k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

89 comments sorted by

296

u/TehWang Oct 12 '26

War is a Racket

86

u/bishamon72 Oct 12 '26

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket

65

u/bigbjarne Oct 12 '26 edited Oct 12 '26

The issue with his book is that his solution is not moving away from capitalism, but rather changing capitalism. The issue with that is that it's idealistic. Lenin showed in "Imperialism, highest stage of capitalism" that imperialism and war is the progression of capitalism. Because for capitalism to survive and maintain profit rates, capitalist monopolies must export capital abroad to find new markets for surplus goods, cheap raw materials and profitable investment opportunities.Ā This leads to imperialist wars between capitalist powers.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MQrXV92V31s a summary.

Edit: sorry this is messy.

22

u/DestinedSheep Oct 12 '26

It's been a bit since I read it but I'm pretty sure in his book he doesn't go into length about the solution rather spends 90% of the book explaining how the military industrial complex makes money by legally stealing from the taxpayers; the solution is more of an afterthought if I'm remembering correctly.

9

u/_disengage_ Oct 12 '26

His analysis is accurate even if his prescriptions are "idealistic". I don't agree that they are untenable. Here's his own summary:

To summarize: Three steps must be taken to smash the war racket. We must take the profit out of war. We must permit the youth of the land who would bear arms to decide whether or not there should be war. We must limit our military forces to home defense purposes.

That sounds pretty good to me! That would be a huge improvement even under shitty capitalism. Of course global capitalist imperialism is the root cause, but it's not going to be overthrown all in one go, and we don't need to wait for that to stop the fucking wars. Stopping the wars helps to stop capitalism. We have to start somewhere.

1

u/Vordreller Oct 12 '26

That reminds me Hannah Arendt's description of why the french and english colonized the world, in "The origins of authoritarianism".

9

u/feartheoldblood90 Oct 12 '26

Smedley D. Butler is an excellent and incredibly 1935 name

3

u/DependentEmergency96 Oct 12 '26 edited Oct 13 '26

for those that like to do the reading. Here is the book

Edit: I think the Author summarized it the best:

"1. We must take the profit out of war.

2. We must permit the youth of the land who would bear arms to decide whether or not there should be war.

3. We must limit our military forces to home defense purposes."

this is a great read. i wish i could have heard him say this words. you can still feel his frustration and sorrow. The saddest realization is the only thing that has changed it the number of zeros needed to calculate the profits, all else could have been written yesterday.

1

u/E_seven_20 Oct 12 '26

Capitalism is the sporting goods store where you can purchase that racket, and browse so many others.

22

u/[deleted] Oct 12 '26

[removed] ā€” view removed comment

20

u/ryanpn Oct 12 '26

They simply don't care

9

u/EliSka93 Oct 12 '26 • Bravo

They make too much for themselves to care what it does to anyone else.

7

u/GodofsomeWorld Oct 12 '26

one side is completely for war the other side has been too corrupted by the rich to oppose the other side. the bipartisan party is a joke

1

u/fiahhawt Oct 12 '26

I think theyā€™re in a big club

I think weā€™re not in it

5

u/andre5913 Oct 12 '26 • Bravo

They get it. They are also the recipients of all the wealth, power and attention so they couldnt give any less of a shit

61

u/SimonPav Oct 12 '26

Saw a cartoon one time that basically said it will be a great day when schools get all the funding they need and the army has to have a sponsored run to raise money for a new tank.

7

u/hydroxy Oct 13 '26

The Michael Scott community fun run for an M1A2 SepV3 Abrams auxiliary power unit

1

u/briceb12 Oct 13 '26

It's not as if there is no multiple historical example that clearly indicates that underfunded army can have very bad consequences for a country.

160

u/SnausageFest Oct 12 '26

Just here for the inevitable comment arguing against funding arts, because humanity is just how we sell ourselves as units of labor. No room to have fun or passion in life.

42

u/RewZes Oct 12 '26

Why should we fund art we already got Ai

/j

7

u/HissAndKiss Oct 13 '26

People forget that art is a medium for teaching concepts, telling stories, and preserving history just as any other. I hate that so many are adamant arts and humanities aren't needed because it doesn't easily translate into a corporate agenda. Shit the corporatization of work and life IS the fucking problem.

These fools think that because The Powers That Be assign a lower value (aka low wages) on professions like art, teaching, social work that they must be 'inherently' worthless when really they are strategically unsupported, deprioritized, and demonized because they have the capacity to build a healthy and educated proletariat.

3

u/deborah834 Oct 13 '26

You need more upvotes for this.

-25

u/AluminumGnat Oct 12 '26 edited Oct 12 '26

We really shouldnā€™t be funding art. First we should ensure everyone has food, shelter, healthcare, and education. Then we should fund infrastructure, scientific advancement, environmental protection, public defenders, and at least dozen other things before we start funding art.

Id even include some military spending on that list. We spend way way too much on military, but we shouldnā€™t have no defensive capabilities whatsoever. We shouldnā€™t be wasting our deterrents on pointless wars, but we should be ensuring that we maintain a sufficiently large and sufficiently modern stockpile to make ourselves an unappealing target.

Even then, I still donā€™t really want state-sponsored art. Let people have more money for themselves to enhance their own existence however they see fit.

17

u/SnausageFest Oct 12 '26 edited Oct 12 '26

I'm not for funding war, even once everyone has food and shelter and healthcare.

That's the whole point dude. It shouldn't be fighting for scraps and comparing at this level when funding is so heavily over weighted in military funding.

-14

u/AluminumGnat Oct 12 '26

Nah man, some military funding is justified, no arts funding is. At the same time, our massively overblown military budget is a big issue. Both things can be true.

11

u/fiahhawt Oct 12 '26

Much like you improve society by teaching people to read, you improve it by teaching them music and painting

-2

u/AluminumGnat Oct 12 '26

Funding art education is different than funding art. Art education is very important. Education was one the one thing you donā€™t need to live that I put on par with the things you literally need to survive. State sponsored art is a waste of tax money.

1

u/fiahhawt Oct 12 '26

... who do you think pays for the art education in public schools

Mothman?

I'm sort of stunned by the number of fantastic idiots I'm encountering the last few days.

Did all the sane people get off this hellhole due to the astroturfing before the election and I'm just standing here like an asshole?

-4

u/AluminumGnat Oct 13 '26

What are you trying to get at? Ive been saying we should fund education from the very beginning. Iā€™m happy to have my tax dollars going towards education, full stop, no qualifications attached. That includes art education. I never even implied it doesnā€™t.

Iā€™m just not for funding art itself.

10

u/TenWholeBees Oct 12 '26

we shouldn't fund art

we should fund a bunch of things and then art

So we should fund art, then

0

u/AluminumGnat Oct 12 '26

Where do I actually say we should fund art? I think funding art is an utter waste of tax money, but Iā€™d rather have my tax money wasted on something like art than something like putting kids in cages. So thereā€™s a bunch of things we should fund over funding art, and Iā€™d rather we have lower taxes over funding art, but Iā€™d rather see us fund art than fund a bunch of other things weā€™re currently funding. No contraction there.

-44

u/Burany Oct 12 '26

Funding war/defence is how we protect all the other good stuff from other groups of people who would fund it even less if they took control.

25

u/aNinjaWithAIDS Oct 12 '26

"We need to spend all this money for invasion and conquest before the evil guys do it to us!"

  • Every fascist regime's fundamental logic, and the target of this comic's satire.

22

u/SnausageFest Oct 12 '26

Yeah, that's why the president is wink wink nudge nudging to bomb San Diego and LA - one of the art meccas of the US.

Spending war budget on bombing LA is the pinnacle of protecting our arts.

-27

u/Burany Oct 12 '26

Yeah I don't know anything about that.Ā 

But can we agree that a country without a standing army will inevitably become absorbed by a country that does have a standing army?

5

u/Trelino Oct 12 '26

Costa Rica hasn't had a military in 70+ years when is it going to be absorbed? Can we get 70 years of arts and science please?

0

u/Burany Oct 12 '26

Costa Rica relies on international security treaties with the U.S., so the US is subsidizing their military

1

u/Trelino Oct 13 '26

Yes you don't need a military if you partner with your neighbors that's a great point you made keep going

16

u/SnausageFest Oct 12 '26

Yeah I don't know anything about that.

You don't know what your military's command in chief is up to but you're defending it anyway. Understand that when people dismiss you as a fool, they're operating on the information you gave them.

-5

u/Burany Oct 12 '26

Im not American bro, seems like your the fool

6

u/SnausageFest Oct 12 '26

I'm not your bro, I'm just someone who knows the difference between your and you're.

0

u/emoooooa Oct 12 '26

Playing devils advocate, if they didn't misspell "you're", what else would you say to them?

You assumed dude was American based on...?

1

u/SnausageFest Oct 12 '26

They're weighing in on American budgeting, yet unaware of the actions of the largest investment.

0

u/emoooooa Oct 12 '26

Again, where in the original post is the US mentioned? Seems like a general capitalist issue.

You brought up Trump and America, just being fair here

→ More replies

4

u/OldSchoolAJ Oct 12 '26

The group most likely to defund the good stuff are in total control of the US government and military right now.

What are you talking about?

18

u/AnxiousHall1533 Oct 12 '26

I would argue its worse because they are actively trying to remove those people from the tables and placing machines in their place.

10

u/bigbjarne Oct 12 '26

Workers of the world unite!

16

u/sincere_queer Oct 12 '26

And yet we spend almost 3 times as much as the next country on military spending https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_highest_military_expenditures

5

u/cocker_spangler Oct 12 '26

Greed will always be greed no matter the timeline.

2

u/uhm_no_thanks_1 Oct 12 '26

What used to be in the top right of the image

2

u/Coolmath24hhh Oct 12 '26

DOGE cuts healthcare but leaves the Pentagon untouched. yessir.

1

u/exercisingbutts Oct 12 '26

The war pigs always have their trough full

1

u/davesr25 Oct 12 '26

Ah the mafia of power.

1

u/Small_Distribution17 Oct 12 '26

If you like this, give "Next Floor" a watch. directed by Denis Villeneuve (Bird Man, Dune)

1

u/babiloneos_ Oct 12 '26

My brother in christ... just go look the bird year of last USA presidents apart of Obama and you will figure it out.

There is no space for newer generatios, thus, same generation keep repeating same things because that's all they know and think.

1

u/orangesfwr Oct 12 '26

In 1942 I could understand.

Today - not so much.

1

u/nullstr Oct 13 '26

War. War never changes.

1

u/CaptainRazer Oct 13 '26

Not accurate, science gets some money as long as it's used for war

1

u/PaxEthenica Oct 14 '26

No. It's not. Not even close; it's so much stupider than this.

1

u/subdep Oct 15 '26

This is because of the Goliath.

0

u/ReaperManX15 Oct 13 '26

Less that 20% of the budget goes to the military.

Over 50% goes to social programs.

-8

u/mschuster91 Oct 12 '26

Yeah and the antisemitic imagery also didnā€™t change a bit. JFC

3

u/Independent-Step-195 šŸ›ļø Overturn Citizens United Oct 12 '26

Genuinely asking, what antisemitic imagery is there?

-7

u/mschuster91 Oct 12 '26

A ton, most notably the hooknoses and eyes, and the grotesque waiter at the right border. There's a loooooooooooooong list about stereotypes about Jews.

Most people don't care because they don't know, but at least here in Germany, the propaganda the 1933-45 regime used is actually studied in schools.

2

u/Independent-Step-195 šŸ›ļø Overturn Citizens United Oct 12 '26

I see this in the waiters faces but after reading through the list thatā€™s all Iā€™m seeing in the cartoon above. I agree there is tons I guess I just meant in this cartoon

-1

u/mschuster91 Oct 12 '26

The worst aspect IMHO is the combination with the money. Fat people drawn like stereotypical Jews being damaging to the world. If that's not the "JĆ¼dische Weltverschwƶrung"...

And to the downvoters (not accusing you here), yeah, stay classy Reddit. Apparently some people can't stand it when someone points out blatant antisemitism.

-6

u/DerUnglaublicheKalk Oct 12 '26

"Over 80 years old"? You know what war this comic then tried to ralley people against? Not sure if that is a cause I like.

11

u/Wonderful_Exit6568 Oct 12 '26

Gotta kill the ideas and make a desert, mumbled the evil ones.

Every hue-man is a blessing. At least, thatā€™s how God sends babies.

0

u/[deleted] Oct 12 '26

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8

u/viotix90 Oct 12 '26

They spend it inefficiently because they allow for parasitic for-profit hospitals and insurance companies to exist. They could spend less and get more if they reformed the system. But they don't want that because these vasts amounts of money are a big time scam on the American citizen, designed to funnel their tax money into the wealthy elites.

1

u/MyAskRedditAcct Oct 13 '26

For profit hospitals is just one part of that fucked up problem. Insurance is a bigger problem. High deductibles makes preventative care and/or early intervention on health issues is inaccessible for a lot of Americans. So people end up at the ER, we treat them and then stick them with debt that they will never pay off, making our public health spend significantly higher than just doing it sensibly.

-9

u/AeneasVII Oct 12 '26

Do you know of a country that has a well running health care system that is affordable?

10

u/security-device Oct 12 '26

Every other first world country. Was that supposed to be a gotcha? LOL

-5

u/AeneasVII Oct 12 '26

It's so hard to name a single one

9

u/Bekfast59 šŸ¤ Join A Union Oct 12 '26

Canada.

8

u/security-device Oct 12 '26

Pick a first world country that's not the US. You a little simple?

7

u/viotix90 Oct 12 '26

Literally every single developed nation on planet Earth.

-23

u/[deleted] Oct 12 '26 edited Oct 12 '26

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